


As Constant and As Changeful

by inexplicifics



Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [25]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Feelings Realization, Literal Sleeping Together, Love Confessions, Sex, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:27:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26689675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inexplicifics/pseuds/inexplicifics
Summary: Serrit tries to figure out what, precisely, she feels for Gweld, with Auckes' patient help.
Relationships: Gweld/Serrit (The Witcher)
Series: The Accidental Warlord and His Pack [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683661
Comments: 121
Kudos: 2231





	As Constant and As Changeful

Serrit corners Auckes out in a corner of the training grounds, where they can pretend they’re watching the trainees fail to cast an effective Aard. He waits for her to speak - damned unnatural _patience_ he’s always had, Serrit has never known how he does it - and finally she grits her teeth and grates out, “How - how’d you know you were in love?”

“Ah,” Auckes says, and she almost punches him and leaves. She keeps her temper by the barest margin. “Well, my first inkling was when I discovered I didn’t want Zofia to leave after we fucked.”

“Huh,” Serrit says. She always leaves after she and Gweld fuck - she won’t _sleep_ next to him, that’s an intimacy and a level of trust she’s never been able to give _anyone_ except occasionally her brothers. But...these days she kind of hesitates. Just a little. Gweld’s very warm, and she _likes_ being warm, after all. And he’s very comfortable to lie on top of, coiled around him like the snake of her School. She prods at the thought. What _would_ happen if she just...stayed?

She doesn’t actually think he’d stab her in her sleep. He’s a fucking _puppy_ , she knows that better than anyone. Absurdly good-natured and friendly, and unwilling to harm anyone who doesn’t attack him first. More a spaniel than a wolf, really.

“Mph,” she says, and goes stomping off to hit a training dummy and think for a while.

Two nights later, when they’ve finished fucking and Gweld is lying beneath her, panting a little and grinning with all his teeth like he’s fucking _proud_ of having made her peak four times tonight, she thinks about getting up and leaving, about going back to her own bed, stoking up the fire and curling up beneath the blankets and waiting for the room to heat up properly - thinks about it, and sighs, and puts her head down on Gweld’s shoulder, and doesn’t move.

Slowly and tentatively, Gweld lifts an arm and drapes it around her waist, loosely enough that she could get up without even exerting herself if she wanted to. His hand is very warm on her hip; he’s got _big_ hands, scarred and dextrous and always so warm.

She lies there, letting her heart beat in time with his, letting her breath synchronize with his, and he sighs like he’s utterly content and closes his eyes.

She could kill him without any trouble. She’s got a knife under the pillow, she’s got her _teeth_ , sharp and strong and right next to his bared throat. But - she won’t. She doesn’t _want_ to hurt him, not more than the biting and scratching of their coupling, the bruises they leave on each other in their passion. She doesn’t want his blood staining her hands and teeth. She wants...she wants him to look that contented, that utterly pleased with himself, and lie calm and trusting beneath her with his arm about her waist, and be happy.

She stays up late into the night, breathing in time with Gweld’s slow, sleeping exhalations, and finally, well past midnight, lets herself fall into a light doze. Gweld sleeps quietly, neither snoring nor talking in his sleep, and he’s so _very_ warm, and his arm never tightens around her.

It’s not terribly restful, but it’s still...pleasant. Worryingly so.

“Alright,” she says to Auckes the next morning, as they clean their swords after training. “What else?”

“Well,” Auckes says thoughtfully, “I noticed that I liked just being near her. Not even _doing_ anything much, just...being near her. It makes me happy to see her.”

“Mph,” Serrit says, and goes on cleaning her weapons, thinking hard. She... _does_ spend an awful lot of time with Gweld, given that he’s neither her Schoolmate nor one of her preferred training partners. They seem to end up in the same room, reading or drawing or whittling or tending their armor and weapons, a _lot_ more often than random chance would dictate. And it’s not always _Gweld_ coming and finding _her_ , either. She...doesn’t go _looking_ for him, not consciously, but if she’s looking for a place to sit down and do some small chore or other, mending or cleaning or studying, she...often finds whichever room Gweld is in, and settles somewhere she can see him out of the corner of her eye. Just knowing he’s there is oddly...restful. Pleasing, like the warmth of a fire on a cold day or the first sip of good ale or the scent of Marlene’s best venison stew. Even if he never speaks to her, even if they never touch, just being _near_ him makes even very shitty days less shitty.

And come to think of it, she’s always grumpier when Gweld is out on patrol, and she doesn’t see him for a week or more. Not that it’s terribly noticeable, given that her usual state is of coiled readiness to stab at any provocation, but...she _is_ slightly more irritable when she hasn’t seen Gweld for a while. Interesting.

“Alright,” she says that night after supper, as they’re heading up to take their turn on watch. “What else?”

Auckes doesn’t chuckle, though she can smell his amusement. “I wanted to make her happy, and was glad of her joy,” he says gently.

“Oh,” Serrit says, and paces the battlements, watching the clouds scud along in front of the moon. _Does_ she like it when Gweld is happy? When _she_ has made him so?

Gweld is usually happy. But - sometimes she’ll do something, smile at him or allow him to coax her onto the dancing floor or settle beside him with their shoulders brushing, and he’ll smile far too brightly, and there will be a strange warmth deep in Serrit’s chest, like a pleasant coal.

That’s...Serrit doesn’t quite know what to do with that.

It makes Gweld happy if she stays after they fuck, and he never does anything that might even _look_ like a threat, so Serrit does it again, and again, and again. It’s...nice, actually, to wake up curled around him, warm down to her bones, his hair tickling her nose. It’s nice when he wakes up and blinks at her and smiles, and kisses her nose to make her bare her teeth at him. She sleeps well, curled around his warm bulk. Sleeps better than she does in her own bed, sometimes.

It makes Gweld happy if she dances with him on the nights the bard plays dancing music, and he’s a good dancer, as far as Serrit can tell. And he doesn’t get stupid about it, doesn’t insist that he always has to lead or get cranky if she dips _him_ , and Serrit has discovered she _likes_ dancing. Milena made her a skirt sewn all over with a pattern like a snake’s scales, with slits in its sides so she can get at the daggers strapped to her legs, and it goes _swish_ around Serrit’s ankles very nicely. So dancing is an easy thing to agree to - an easy way to earn that bright smile, that warmth in her chest.

It makes Gweld happy if she spends time near him, and she’s already figured out that being near him makes _her_ happy, so there’s no point making _both_ of them miserable. And there’s no point being crankier than she has to be, when Gweld is out on patrol and she’s not. No point in being miserable if she doesn’t _have_ to be.

She goes to Eskel and asks to be put on the roster with Gweld as often as possible. Eskel, thank fuck, gives her a calm look and a nod, and little Livi goes and pulls a ledger nearly as big as she is off one of the shelves, and Eskel notes down Serrit’s preference.

Serrit doesn’t know what to do about the fact that she can see, in Eskel’s clear printing, a note that _Gweld_ would prefer to go on patrol with _Serrit_ , should she agree. The way Eskel runs his rosters, she knows, _both_ people need to agree that they want to patrol with each other for it to become a semi-permanent assignment, but only one person has to express distaste for another in order for Eskel to do everything in his power to keep them from being sent out together.

So she’s going to be spending a lot of time with Gweld from now on. Patrols, dancing, sleeping in the same bed after they fuck, sitting quietly near each other as they do chores -

Serrit goes for a run up the mountain, needing to _move_ , to do something simple and straightforward that doesn’t involve any damn _emotions_. She’s a fucking _Viper_. They don’t _do_ emotions. They’re as coldblooded and coldhearted as their namesake animal.

Except, of course, that Auckes adores Zofia, that’s obvious to anyone with a nose, and Letho would kill or die for little Julita, and Serrit herself -

Serrit herself doesn’t know whether the warm feeling in her chest is love, but she’s genuinely worried that it might be. What does _she_ know about being in love?

She’s up on one of the shorter mountain peaks, breathing hard in the cold clear air and looking out over the patchwork greens and yellows of late-autumn Kaedwen, when the thought hits her like one of Eskel’s fucking Aards:

Here she is worrying about whether she loves _Gweld_ , and she has no idea if he loves _her_.

He’s a puppy of a Wolf, and unnaturally good-natured. He’s _always_ smelled sweet and happy, even that first time they met, with the fucking barghest. And if Serrit has - has gone and let herself fall in love like a fucking _idiot_ , and he’s _not_ in love -

Well, she’d better get off the patrol roster with him, that’s for sure.

She goes back down the mountain rather faster than she went up, and as soon as she reaches the keep, goes hunting through the halls until she finds Auckes holed up in the library, patiently fixing the binding on an ancient bestiary. She doesn’t pin him against a shelf, but it’s a near thing. He puts down the little pot of glue and the brush very carefully and turns to look at her, raising one eyebrow and waiting for her to explain.

“Is,” Serrit starts, and almost chokes on the words. “Fuck. Is Gweld in love with _me_?”

Auckes gives her a _look_. “Yes,” he says, in the tone of someone stating something so obvious it oughtn’t need to be said. “Has been for years.”

“Oh,” Serrit says, and sits down on the nearest chair, which creaks ominously. The furniture that ends up in the library tends to be very old and rather battered; this one has a leg that’s nearly cracked through. Serrit gets up again hastily. “ _Why?_ ”

Auckes shakes his head a little and turns back to his book mending. “I genuinely don’t know, sister. _I_ love you, but I wouldn’t take you to bed for a sack of gold. I like having all my bits at the end of the night.”

“I’ve never maimed Gweld,” Serrit objects.

“I know,” Auckes agrees. “Which is how I know you must love _him_.”

“Mph,” Serrit says, and goes off to have a good soak in the hot springs - sprinting up and down a mountain _does_ work up a bit of a sweat.

After supper there’s dancing, and when Gweld comes over hopefully she grabs his hand and yanks him out onto the floor, and he laughs and lets _her_ lead all night, lets himself be twirled and dipped and spun, leans back into her arms and bats his pretty yellow eyes at her and pretends to swoon like a noble maiden. It’s absurdly pleasing.

She follows him back to his rooms at the end of the night, but when the door closes behind her, she leans back against it and crosses her arms over her chest and glares at him. Gweld blinks at her in confusion for a moment, and then sits down on the side of his bed and waits.

“I’m never going to drape myself all over you like the Wolf’s bard does him and Eskel,” Serrit says bluntly. “And I’m not going to call you fucking ridiculous pet-names, or flutter my eyelashes and swoon.”

“I would never expect you to,” Gweld says calmly.

“And I’m not moving in with you,” Serrit adds. She likes sleeping on him, yeah, but she likes having her _own_ damn space, somewhere no one else ever intrudes, her own _den_ , safe and secure and _hers_.

“That’s fine,” Gweld says.

“And - and - why _me?_ ” Serrit blurts. “I’m a ruthless, violent, foul-tempered asshole. Always have been and always will be.”

Gweld cocks his head to the side and clearly thinks about it for a moment before shrugging. “I have no idea,” he says. “I just know I _like_ the fact that you’re a ruthless, violent, foul-tempered asshole, and so what if that doesn’t make any sense? Love doesn’t. If I could explain it rationally, would it really be love?”

“Mph,” Serrit says. “Don’t - don’t get all sappy.”

“I won’t,” Gweld says, smiling broadly. “I know better. Vipers are allergic to sappiness.”

Serrit kind of wants to punch him. How dare he be so - so fucking _easygoing_? So understanding and calm? Fucking good-natured Wolf and his fucking _smile_ and the warmth of his fucking stupid enormous hands and -

“Fuck,” she snarls, and crosses the space between them and kisses him, hard, biting his lip harshly enough to draw blood. Gweld wraps his hands around her waist and rolls her onto the bed and kisses back, hard and sweet and eager. Somehow they both get their clothing off, scrabbling at each other frantically, and Serrit ends up spreading her legs and letting Gweld take her with all the force that only a Witcher can bring to bear, every roll of his hips _unfairly_ well-aimed, while Serrit snarls and bites at his shoulders and claws at his back and draws delicious moans and growls from his throat.

It’s good. It’s _always_ good between them. And thank fuck, Gweld doesn’t _say_ anything, even when they’re done, just tucks his nose into the crook of Serrit’s neck and breathes in and sighs with contentment.

She lies there quietly for a long while, as his breathing evens out and their mingled scents spread through the room, sex and sweat and the slight sourness that tints every Witcher’s smell.

He’s almost asleep when she finally says, very quietly, “I do. Love you. I think.” She trusts him enough to sleep beside him, and is happier when he is near, and is glad of it when _he_ is happy; if that’s love, then...well. Then she’s a damned fool, but she knew _that_.

“Thank you,” Gweld whispers.

“And if you try to steal my kills while we’re out on patrol, I’ll stab you,” Serrit adds, and Gweld chuckles, a warm puff of air against the bare skin of her shoulder.

“I wouldn’t dare, my beloved sharp-fanged Viper,” he murmurs.

Serrit considers whether she wants to object to that, but she never said _he_ couldn’t use pet-names, and anyhow it isn’t sappy. It makes her sound just as fierce and dangerous as she is. She can let him call her that.

“Alright,” she says, and falls asleep in her Wolf’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks for all your comments, kudos, and support! Please come say hello on tumblr or discord!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] As Constant and As Changeful](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26710450) by [AceOfTigers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceOfTigers/pseuds/AceOfTigers)




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